Grand Lisboa

Everyday life has always existed alongside gambling (clinically renamed gaming) in Macau. Before the end of the gambling monopoly in 2001, a few bizarre casinos had dotted the city plan of the Macau peninsula, rising in the middle of commonplace residences, humble shops, playgrounds, schools and general livelihood. Among them, Lisboa Hotel and Casino is the flagship of the group. Any self-respecting locals would know how to navigate the immediate neighbourhood of these casinos, making small detours to avoid blasphemous vibes in plain sight.

But Lisboa Casino shared the same structure as Lisboa Hotel, then the most prestigious hotel in Macau. Family dinners were held in its restaurants, children spent Sundays in its game arcade and ordinary people posed for photos in front of the hotel's magnificent steps and entrance flanked by exotic bellboys in Portuguese bullfighter costumes. Regular visitors however, including the under-aged, could not avoid passing by the interior entrances to the casino under the same roof. These brief encounters would forever be imprinted in the young minds. Dense clouds of smoke overflowing onto passageways, foul-smelling fumes filling the air, rowdy suspense followed by vulgar utterances, and parents shooing children to quickly skip the disagreeable scene. 

And yet there would be one more hurdle to haunt family visitors. Once out of the building, the foreboding exterior of Lisboa Casino became visible, skirted by crowds of men and women supposedly engaging in misdeeds. Families would have to move in a pack, with children at the centre to shield direct gazes at the unsightly. 

Grand Lisboa Hotel and Casino opened for business in 2007, forever changing the cityscape and peoplescape of Macau. Regular natives of Macau on their way to work or school only have to skillfully cut through the masses of photo-taking tourists packing the street level vicinity. Expert bus drivers are always on the look-out when passing through the nearby streets, mindful of selfie fanatics suddenly hurling themselves onto the avenida to get a good shot. 

In 2014, smoking was banned in the main floors of all casinos in Macau, marking yet another milestone in the clinical operation of the gaming business of the city. In the same year, casinos grossed MOP 351,521 million (around USD 44.1 billion) in total, falling for the first time on an annual basis since its casinos were liberalised in 2001*.

Complement this read with MACAU_Gold Lisboa on the mirror website for MACAU_Days.

* “Macau's gambling revenue hit with first annual fall”, BBC, 2 January 2015